It all started in San Francisco, the City by the Bay, in
March 1971.
When Werner Erhard first burst onto the local stage - literally
coming from nothing - to capture the public awareness
(no, to rivet the public awareness) delivering the
first
est
Training
at the
Jack Tar Hotel
on Van Ness Avenue in October of that year, nobody had experienced
anyone or any-thing like him before. In a
zeitgeist rich with Transactional Analysis,
Haight Ashbury, the Summer of Love, Primal (Scream) Therapy,
Rolfing,
meditation, yoga,
gurus,
all inside of a background conversation in which the nation was
coming to terms with its
participation
in the reviled Vietnam war, there was simply no one and nothing
like Werner Erhard.
Werner
Erhard
demonstrated
an uncanny knack for turning people on to their own inner
strengths, a pragmatic way of showing people
experientially
who they really are,
a count-on-able ability (where did he get it?)
to have people give up their deadening positions and
instead take on new possibilities for themselves and for their
lives, a remarkable gift of reliably, time after time after time,
bringing people to their own enlightenment - a word he
actually
eschews
given its association with an eastern
context
which he says he doesn't require, preferring to use the word
transformation
instead. It was dramatic Socratic theatre. It was
history in the making.
Forty years later and five years after it made its debut on the
world scene, having already been shown many times in cities and
towns around these United States and in other countries in
theatres, in film festivals, and in private screenings on DVD,
double Emmy award winning PBS ie Public
Broadcasting Service producer
Robyn Symon's
biographical documentary which covers
Werner Erhard's life and
work,
the appropriately and accurately titled
Transformation: The
Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard
finally came home like the Prodigal Son to San
Francisco to premiere at the thirteenth
"SF IndieFest" - the San Francisco
Ind(i)ependent Film Festival.
The thirteenth SF IndieFest screened
Transformation: The
Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard
three times at the historic Roxie Cinema on 16th Street in February
of 2011:
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